Our Trip to Google HQ in Mountain View, CA

This year, Artificer Wood Works was lucky enough to be one of just 56 small businesses from around the U.S. to be featured in Google's Economic Impact Report. As part of this honor, Google invited us to their headquarters in Mountain View, CA to celebrate, learn, and network with other featured small businesses.

It was inspiring to meet with other businesses from a wide variety of industries including editorial, fashion, manufacturing, retail, service, and many others. Some of the businesses employed only one person, while others employed 200+. As we all may occupy different niches, there was much to be shared when it came to getting more awareness for our businesses.

Some of the highlights of our trip included informative presentations on how to grow your business using Google tools; some of which we did not know existed. We learned about Primer – an app that acts as a pocket business coach, teaching little, easy to digest lessons on how to grow your business. Another highlighted app was YouTube Director – an easy to use app that helps you create great videos and YouTube ads for your business. After presentations, we toured the Google Campus (which was massive!) and had some one-on-one time with our own personal 'Googler'. Fun fact: The giant T-Rex on the Google campus pictured above has a purpose. It is there to remind everyone that nothing is too big to fail. Then it was time to celebrate with the other attendees and our Google hosts on a spectacular dinner cruise of the San Francisco Bay.

It was an honor to be featured in the Economic Impact Report and to be invited to Google's Headquarters, as well as, exciting to meet other small businesses from around the nation who received the same honor. It was also great to see Google's commitment to small business. It was actually amazing to think that Google started in a garage in 1998. We heard time and again that Google's goal is to help small businesses succeed. It was obvious from our experience that they help level the playing field so businesses like ours can gain awareness and our customers can find us.

Here are just a few of the other great businesses we met on our trip; we hope you check them out!